Suella Braverman has urged her local council to gazump a Home Office attempt to buy a £7 million block of flats to house asylum seekers.
The former home secretary has written to Fareham council, urging it to buy the 27-flat block in the Hampshire market town. The Home Office is seeking to purchase the building to house more than 70 migrants.
It is part of the Home Office’s attempts to achieve its pledge to end the use of hotels for asylum seekers by buying up properties and using the private rented accommodation to house them.
Figures released on Thursday revealed the number of asylum seekers put up in hotels had increased by more than 8,000 to 38,000 in the six months since the general election.
ADVERTISEMENT
In her letter to the council, Mrs Braverman urged the council to “deploy every possible resource” and move swiftly to acquire the property, Wates House and prevent the Home Office using it to house “illegal immigrants”.
“The council must act immediately to secure Wates House, either through lease or purchase, so it can be used to house local families and local people who are in genuine need,” she said.
“Our focus needs to be on serving them and ensuring that available housing supports those who are part of our community.”
Labour scrapped the bulk of the Tories’ plans to use large sites to house asylum seekers, including the Bibby Stockholm barge, in Dorset and RAF Scampton, in Lincolnshire. It has, however, retained the former airbase at RAF Wethersfield, where more than 600 asylum seekers are currently being housed.
Sir Matthew Rycroft, the permanent secretary at the Home Office, told MPs that the Government was looking to use a large number of smaller sites, some to be bought by the Home Office but also including private rental properties.
ADVERTISEMENT
He admitted hotels could continue to be used up to the next election in four years’ time. “The overarching aim continues to be to exit hotels by the end of the Parliament,” he said.
Before the election, Labour pledged to “end the use of hotels for asylum seekers within 12 months” by recruiting 1,000 caseworkers to tackle the backlog of applications.
The party’s manifesto did not set a similar timescale and simply stated that a Labour government would “end asylum hotels, saving the taxpayer billions of pounds”. Since coming to power, ministers have acknowledged that it “will take time” and pledged their “intention” to end asylum hotels “as soon as possible”.
In a parliamentary answer to Mrs Braverman last month, Dame Angela Eagle, the Home Office minister, said 10 hotels were due for closure by the end of March.
ADVERTISEMENT
“It remains our absolute commitment to end the use of hotels over time, as part of our reduction in overall asylum accommodation costs,” she said.
“The safety and well-being of the local communities in which asylum accommodation is located is of paramount importance. The Home Office works in collaboration with local authorities and key stakeholders to ensure that accommodation sites are successfully managed and the impact upon the local community is minimised.”
EMEA Tribune is not involved in this news article, it is taken from our partners and or from the News Agencies. Copyright and Credit go to the News Agencies, email news@emeatribune.com Follow our WhatsApp verified Channel
